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BETTY E. ROUSH

doi:10.1598/RT.58.6.7

he kindergarten classroom is buzzing with

excitement. Students pretend to fall, neigh,
and march as they dramatize the nursery
rhyme Humpty Dumpty. Quickly, students ask,
Can we do another one? Can we do Hickory,
Dickory Dock? Students are engaged in the activity of dramatizing nursery rhymes they have
learned. Through the use of words and actions,
these kindergartners are developing their oral language and phonological awareness.
When I first began teaching, children came to
school having memorized nursery rhymes. About 10
years ago, I remember discussing with colleagues
that our current students lacked knowledge of nursery rhymes, and I wondered what the results of this
would be. Smithers (2003) discussed a study that
surveyed more than 700 teachers about their perceptions of childrens skills on school entry. These
teachers claimed that half of all children in the
United States now start school unable to speak audibly and be understood by others. The speaking and
listening skills of children have deteriorated, and few
enter the classroom able to recite or sing the simplest
nursery rhymes or songs. Learning nursery rhymes
has been seen as an important first step toward the
grasp of literacy and number skills and as a key to
phonological development (Smithers). Adding
dramatization to nursery rhymes can be beneficial to
the development of oral language and phonological
awareness (Fazio, 1997).
Oral language acquisition in young children is
crucial to their success as they learn to read and write
due to the interrelationship of oral and written language. As kindergartners enter school, many are still
negotiating the language process. This is especially
true for second-language learners. Kindergartners

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who are second-language learners begin by listening

to develop their language and to build vocabulary.
The students may not talk except to give the names
of another student or to answer yes and no questions.
They may communicate using gestures and actions.
As they develop their language skills, they begin to
use one or two words or short phrases (Weaver,
1994). Nursery rhymes have a musical quality with
different language patterns, rhythm, and rhyme in
the verses. They help children satisfy their fascination with language patterns and encourage their language development (Honeyghan, 2000; Huck, 1976).
Phonological awareness is a powerful predictor
of whether students will be successful in reading. It
refers to the ability to pay attention to, identify, and
manipulate various sound segments of speech.
Research indicates that activities that guide childrens attention to the sounds within spoken words
and to the relationship between print and speech
can facilitate learning to read (Fazio, 1997; Snow,
Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Adding dramatization to
nursery rhymes enhances and is developmentally
appropriate for teaching phonological awareness
for children in preschool through third grade
(Constantine, 2001; Fazio).
In this article, I share activities for use in the
classroom that require active participation with
nursery rhymes through dramatization. The activities involve repeated readings, reading in context,
and examining the rhyming components.

Rehearsal
When beginning the process, I select a familiar rhyme (see Table 1). I examine each line of the
nursery rhyme to determine which words can be

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TABLE 1
Drama rhymes examples
Nursery rhyme

Realia

Drama

Additional rhymes

Hickory, Dickory, Dock

Picture of a grandfather
clock and a mouse, and
sound of clock striking

1. Stand straight and

tall like a grandfather
clock.
2. Use the hand to
represent a mouse
running up the clock
to the top of the
childs head.
3. When the clock
strikes one, the hand
jumps off the head.
4. Then the hand runs
down other side of
childs body.

Block, cock, flock,

shock, tock

Depending on the
version, the second part
may have a rhyme.
Some versions say,
The clock struck one,
and down he run.
Others say, The clock
struck one. The mouse
ran down.

Bun, done, fun, sun

Little Boy Blue

Horn, sheep, picture of

a meadow, cow, corn,
picture of a haystack,
and video of cow and
sheep

1. Pretend to blow a
horn.
2. Baa like a sheep.
3. Eat corn like a cow.
4. Put hands up as if
questioning where
Little Boy Blue is.
5. Pretend to be asleep.

Born, morn, torn, worn

Beep, deep, keep, leap,
peep, weep

Little Miss Muffet

Picture of a tuffet
(a low seat), a spider,
curd (thick, rich part of
coagulated milk), and
whey (watery part of
milk)

1. Sit.
2. Pretend to eat curd
and whey.
3. Use hand to
represent spider
coming down.
4. Pretend to run away.

Cuffet, duffet
Cider, hider,
rider, wider

dramatized. Realia or pictures are used to help students understand words or concepts. I also prepare
a chart with the nursery rhyme that is used many
times as we learn, dramatize, and discuss the
rhyme. I find a picture that illustrates the nursery
rhyme or create my own to aid the children in understanding the words and concepts.

Creation of the drama

Humpty Dumpty is a nursery rhyme that is
familiar to many. Looking at the first line, Humpty
Dumpty sat on a wall, I think about the school
grounds to determine if we have a wall that would
help the children experience where Humpty
Dumpty was. While thinking about Humpty
Dumpty had a great fall, I realize that all children
have fallen, so they should understand this concept.

Two difficult concepts are All the kings horses and all the kings men. Some children have never seen a horse. I use videos that show horses
galloping and neighing to help them understand
horses. Next I use pictures of horses and allow the
children to gallop around and neigh like horses to
build background. For all the kings men, I use
pictures of soldiers, talk about their role in relation
to the king, and permit children to march or pretend
to ride like soldiers. When examining Couldnt
put Humpty together again, we discuss how
Humpty Dumpty is portrayed like an egg. I bring in
an uncooked egg and drop it into a container to
demonstrate what happens to Humpty Dumpty.
The first two lines have concepts that should be
easy for the students to understand, so I plan to do
them the first day. The other lines will be done in
two or three sittings depending on how well students understand the concepts.

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The debut
On the first day of the lesson, I have all items
available. I display the picture and words of the
nursery rhymes and ask the students what they can
tell me about the pictures or words. This allows me
to observe their prior knowledge. As I introduce
each line of the rhyme, I follow this procedure.
First, I point to the words as I read. Then I ask the
children to tell me about any of the words that they
heard. After this discussion, I read the line again,
adding the dramatization or realia. I must remember that I am modeling for my students how to express the rhyme using voice and actions. When this
is done, we discuss the actions or realia used and
their purpose. There may be a few students who
have just watched; others will have participated.
Now I ask all children to participate. The next step
is to decide whether to do another line or stop until the next day. Some of the nursery rhymes are
longer, so they may require more time for children
to develop an understanding. The most important
thing is to meet the needs of my class and plan accordingly. The example below discusses the dramatization that is added to this nursery rhyme.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
(Children pretend to sit down.)
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
(Children fall down.)
All the kings horses
(Children use arms and hands to represent a horse
rearing its head back as it makes a neighing sound.)
And all the kings men
(Children march or pretend to ride in place to represent
the kings men.)
Couldnt put Humpty together again.
(Children shake their heads no and put their hands
together.)

The reviews
After completing the dramatization, we explore the rhyming words. I ask students to tell and
show me the words that rhyme (wall, fall; men,
again). When these rhymes have been evaluated, I
change the words to produce silly rhymes. This al-

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lows students to experiment and build sensitivity to

sound similarities. The first rhyme is kept, and the
second rhyme is adjusted by giving the students the
beginning sound of the new word. Then students
supply the new word. Examples are Humpty
Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a
great b__. The children would reply ball. Other
words that could be supplied are call, hall, mall,
or tall. All the kings horses and all the kings
men, couldnt put Humpty together b__. The children would reply Ben. Other words for this verse
are den, hen, Jen, Ken, pen, and ten. The children
enjoy these silly rhymes while developing phonological awareness. At the conclusion of the nursery rhyme, the children recite the nursery rhyme,
using the dramatization, to other classes at assemblies or at parentteacher meetings.
Nursery rhymes have played an important role
in the past as children learned to read. As teachers,
we need to continue to use them to help children
develop the oral language acquisition and phonological awareness that they require to be readers.
Adding dramatization provides another avenue to
encourage this development. The children become
active participants rather than passive learners.
Roush is a kindergarten teacher at Highland
Elementary School in Inglewood, California,
USA. She may be contacted at 1633 West
Pacific Coast Highway, Apt. 104, Wilmington, CA
90744-1876, USA. E-mail rousch@yahoo.com.
References
Constantine, J.L. (2001). Integrating thematic-fantasy play
and phonological awareness activities in a speechlanguage preschool environment. Journal of Instructional
Psychology, 28, 914.
Fazio, B.B. (1997). Learning a new poem: Memory for
connected speech and phonological awareness in lowincome children with and without specific language
impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing
Research, 40, 12851297.
Honeyghan, G. (2000). PoetryRama: Exploring drama
through Mother Goose nursery rhymes. Florida Reading
Quarterly, 36, 1520.
Huck, C.S. (1976). Childrens literature in the elementary
school (3rd ed.). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Smithers, R. (2003, March 4). Silence of the little lambs:
Talking skills in decline. The Guardian. Retrieved July,
20, 2004, from http://education.guardian.co.uk

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Snow, C., Burns, M., & Griffin, P. (1998). Preventing reading

difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National
Academy Press.
Weaver, C. (1994). Reading process and practice: From
socio-psycholinguistics to whole language (2nd ed.).
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

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